Theatre and Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: TaPRA 2025 Conference to be hosted at Warwick
We're delighted to announce that the annual Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) conference will be hosted by Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick between 27 and 29 August 2025. The conference will mark both the 20th birthday of TaPRA and the 50th anniversary of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick. Our conference keynotes, plenary panels, artistic activity, conference dinner and programmed events will speak to the themes of milestones and markers, focussing on celebrations, festivities, spectacle and joy. We'll look forward to welcoming you to Warwick next year!
To keep up to date with the conference plans, please visit our dedicated TaPRA pages here.
Funding Success with Coventry City of Culture - “I don’t want your hope, I want your action”
Together with Dr Rachel Turner King (Principal Investigator, Education) and Professor David Mond (Maths and Global Sustainable Development), Dr Bobby Smith (Theatre and Performance Studies) has been awarded Coventry City of Culture funding for the project “I don’t want your hope, I want your action”: exploring youth eco-citizenship through verbatim theatre and digital ethnography in the city.
This participatory project, which will involve work with local young people, seeks to investigate how young people understand the relationships between the environment and their lives, and what they currently know about the climate crisis. Young people will become both theatre makers and ethnographic researchers, undertaking a range of interviews and engaging in discussions between themselves and with other members of their local community to investigate the climate crisis.
Drawing on the interdisciplinary background of the team, an applied theatre approach will enable open discussion around these issues and provide an opportunity for young people to explore the climate crisis creatively, and to perform their findings and views to audiences.
This project is a component of a larger international, multi-sited ethnographic study led by Professor Kathleen Gallagher (University of Toronto) entitled Global Youth (Digital) Citizen-Artists and their Publics: Performing for Socio-Ecological Justice. The shorthand for this project is Audacious Citizenship, and it will run 2019-2024. The project involves work taking place in Canada, Columbia, Greece, India and Taiwan, as well as in Coventry. Participants will therefore be given opportunities to connect globally on this important issue.
The City of Culture funding acts as seed funding, helping to launch the Coventry-based aspect of the project, with a view to apply for further funding in 2020/2021.
More news to come soon!